Printing to remote Win95 network printers
Date: 1996/12/29
Message-ID: <01bbf53d$d6e89ec0$945c0fcb_at_ann>
About a fortnight ago I submitted the article / query which follows below my further questions. I received two reply (copies attached) Thank-you.
Unfortunately my ISP's news server has long since deleted the original articles. (the Christmas season has kept me away from the net too). Anyway I'm hoping for further enlightenment 'cause, although the replies help I need more.
Possible Banyan solution.
Joel Garry suggests a way Banyan might be used. Unfortunately the Banyan
client we are using does not support Banyan's 'PCprint" command on a Win
95 machine. Which, basically, is where the whole problem starts. The
server becomes a useless link which hangs off at the side of the whole
network (a bit like an appendix, waiting to go wrong!). We don't want to
upgrade the whole Banyan server software for a number of reasons. i) We've
been told that, although it solves the problem, it is impossibly slow for
Win95 boxes. ii) we've found Banyan upgrades to be difficult to implement –
NewRev does not always work with Win95 boxes. We know how to make it work,
but if it goes wrong it gets very messy very fast. iii) we're quite
possibly going to change to NT anyway so don't really want to put ourselves
through the pain.
Possible 'non-server' solution.
So we're looking for a non-server based solution. Which leads to Micheal
Short's reply.
How do I connect a printer directly to the network? The network is running TCP/IP, Vines protocol and NetBEIU.
Alternatively Micheal suggests "To print from the WIN95 machine, use a file server to direct the print jobs.". This sounds like a path I have tried to go down. I tried running a 'print-server' on the Win95 machine. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to work and it is freeware/shareware and I couldn't get any support. Does anybody know of a 'proper' commercial package?
Could I add to what I said before that we are running the GUI version of the Oracle Financials and that we are running the package on Pentium 120 machines running Win95.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
John
>This seems to me like many would be doing it already. Yet I find myself
trying to re-invent the wheel!
>How do you arrange for reports to be transported, via TCP/IP, from a
remote Unix installation to a Win95 machine and be printed?
>We have just installed Oracle financials database package on a remote
provider's Unix machine. Internally we use a Banyan network, which may be
superceded, - (so we don't want to be painted into any corners!). We are
also using a lot of MS Windows networking to share printers. We are
accessing the Oracle financials database package database using TCP/IP on a
ISDN line. What we need to be able to do is print reports generated by the
Oracle financials package to printers attached to machines on our network -
basically Windows network printers. Do I need to add more?
>Thanx
>PS I'm pretty new to the Unix envirionment.
John Metcalfe Phone Work (09) 426 9215
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Any opinions are my own, not nescessarily those of DSC
I did this a long time ago (Vines 4/5), so I may be misremembering. As I recall, we had to use a freely distributed package written by Pacific Gas & Electric (from Northern California), to interface the unix printer spools with the Banyan printing spools. I don't know if they still do that or if it applies to more modern Banyan. Since Banyan actually is unix, it really shouldn't be that big of a deal! There should be some way to just set up a spooler on the remote unix, and set up the Banyan to accept jobs from it. Perhaps you have a Banyan users group to ask?
I used to belong to ABUI, which was always very helpful, but I no longer know anybody that does Banyan.
Hope this clues!
jg
-- Joel Garry joelga_at_rossinc.com Compuserve 70661,1534 These are my opinions, not necessarily those of Ross Systems, Inc. <> <> %DCL-W-SOFTONEDGEDONTPUSH, Software On Edge - Don't Push. \ V / panic: ifree: freeing free inodes... O __________________________________________________________ Instead of attaching the printer to the WIN95 machine, attach it to the network - assuming it has tcp/ip capability. Printing from UNIX to a tcp/ip printer is very easy. Most systems provide you with a script to configure the printer. To print from the WIN95 machine, use a file server to direct the print jobs. Michael Short [mrshort_at_esvax-mail.es.dupont.com]Received on Sun Dec 29 1996 - 00:00:00 CET